Lancaster Ohio Trip

I had 3 things I wanted to do on our recent trip to Ohio. I wanted to drive some country roads among the fall foliage. I wanted to visit an antique store in Zanesville which advertised it had lots of pottery. I wanted to see the picturesque town of Granville.

It was cold with occasional rain on our first day of travel. I didn’t find a salt-glazed crock small enough to buy. Because Zanesville historically has been a center of pottery production, the antique store did indeed have lots of pottery. I enjoyed seeing pieces by potters I had heard about and seen on ebay. I ended up buying a small Hartstone pitcher. I will have to keep looking for a smallish salt-glazed piece in consignment and antique stores.

We stayed at Rock Mill Cottage in Lancaster, Ohio. I don’t remember what internet link I used to bring up this lodging, but the reviews were so positive I decided to book it even though it meant going through the rigors of registering with Airbnb which we had never used. The cottage is less than an hour’s drive to Hocking Hills and even closer to Columbus.

The cottage was adjacent to an 1847 house where the hosts lived. Across the street was an old grist mill which has recently had the workings reconstructed.

The covered bridge was blocked so only pedestrians can travel through.

Friday was a mostly sunny delightful day. We drove east on U.S. 22, then once on Ohio 37 we let the GPS take over to direct us to Burr Oak Park. I knew from the map that there were few main highways going from Lancaster to the state park, just small country roads. I wish I had a camera mounted on my car so you could get a sense of what we experienced. We were on Jerusalem Road, then Van Horn, then Marietta, and after being on high ridges and down in hollows we came to a numbered road. The trees often formed a canopy of gold and red. My husband was a good sport; taking these routes meant lots of twisty roads with ups and downs and sometimes while on the crest you couldn’t see what was on the downward dip until you had in faith gone over. What towns we saw were small and somewhat rundown. For what it’s worth in these days of sophisticated surveys, we saw maybe 200 Trump/Pence campaign signs and only 2 Hillary/Kaine signs.

Not far from Gloucester on flatter land we saw this decorated barn.

The lake at Burr Oak didn’t have the color I had hoped would reflect in the water. We took a picnic lunch with us and ate at a picnic table near an empty cottage overlooking the lake under a gorgeous maple tree. We did some hiking but didn’t find the trail we thought would go along the shore of the lake.

Our cottage in Lancaster had a good TV. We rooted for the Cubs but alas the Buckeye State (Cleveland Indians) was the happy winner. We consoled ourselves with chocolate cake.

Our b and b hosts worked during the week. The lady had stocked the refrigerator with eggs, bacon, milk, orange juice plus there were English muffins and cereal and a Keurig coffee machine. She also had baked a chocolate cake. On Saturday she prepared the breakfast in the main house and brought it to the cottage. We filled out our menu choices on Friday night. We chose banana pancakes and sausage. Along with that she brought a fruit bowl of black grapes, huge blackberries, and bananas. All very tasty.

After this hearty breakfast, we had a quick tour of the old house which is still being restored. We were told how they took borings out of the cellar beams to determine the date the house was constructed by counting tree rings. Apparently, the practice was to use fairly recently felled timber to build.

Granville was north of Lancaster and on our route home. Saturday was lively with a farmers’ market. A policeman directed traffic on Broad Street so pedestrians could easily cross. We were lucky to find a parking spot just across from the market. Granville promotes itself as a New-England-type of village. Part of the campus of Denison University borders Broad Street, but the main section is built on the hill overlooking the town.

The Granville farmers’ market was maybe 4 times bigger than the one at home in Warsaw and had more diversity of products.

Granville had little shops and several interesting restaurants. We used the restroom facilities in the public library.

It was unusually warm so folks made good use of the outdoor seating of food venues drinking coffee. The main street had lots of benches for resting, too.

Because of Halloween and fall, many homes had special decorations.

Being pretty close to Columbus, big-city activities and venues are easily accessible to the residents and students. (BTW here we saw only Hillary campaign signs.)

As you can tell from all the photos, I found Granville very picturesque.